Written Answers Friday 18 December 2009

Scottish Executive

Culture

Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive when the decision to write off the £180,000 loan to the organisers of The Gathering 2009 was made.

Fiona Hyslop: The decision by the Scottish Government to write off the £180,000 loan to The Gathering 2009 Ltd was made in October 2009.

Culture

Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it had with the organisers of The Gathering 2009 on repayment of the £180,000 loan before the decision to write it off.

Fiona Hyslop: Scottish Government Officials met with the directors of The Gathering 2009 Ltd on 12 May 2009 and discussed the potential provision of a loan from the Scottish Government. Following the event and the financial difficulties faced by The Gathering 2009 Ltd, the First Minister and the Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution met with the company’s directors on 16 September 2009 and discussed potential courses of action.

  The ministers had available an independent economic assessment, which showed that the Gathering had generated over £10 million of income for Scotland - a return on investment of 21-1 against a target of 8-1.

  Officials were asked to examine the Gathering’s financial position and as a result of that analysis it was considered that repayment of the loan was not possible.

  The Scottish Government are supportive of plans to hold a further Gathering given the positive economic impact of the 2009 event.

Culture

Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what the original repayment schedule was for the £180,000 loan to the organisers of The Gathering 2009.

Fiona Hyslop: The Scottish Government wrote to the director of The Gathering 2009 Ltd on 1 June 2009 with the offer of a loan for £180,000. That letter set out that The Gathering 2009 Ltd would repay the loan in full with 14 days of the company receiving payment from World Pay (the payment processing business of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group) and no later than 31 August 2009. On 5 June 2009, the director of The Gathering 2009 Ltd accepted the loan on the basis of the terms and conditions set out.

Culture

Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the organisers of The Gathering 2009 submitted a business plan prior to receiving support from the Scottish Government.

Sarah Boyack (Edinburgh Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it received a copy of the business plan for The Gathering 2009 in advance of the event taking place.

Fiona Hyslop: The Gathering 2009 Ltd submitted a detailed proposal for funding to the Scottish Government in June 2008. On the basis of detail within that proposal, ministers approved £100,000 funding for the Gathering as a contribution to the highland games element of the event (£80,000) and for educational outreach programme (£20,000) and a grant offer letter was issued to The Gathering Ltd on 15 December 2008.

Culture

Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the loan given to the organisers of The Gathering 2009 is a cost against the budget line for Homecoming Scotland or whether it will be met from elsewhere in the Scottish Government’s budget for 2008-09.

Fiona Hyslop: The cost of the loan given to organisers of The Gathering was met from the Europe and External Affairs – Major Events and Themed Years budget line for 2009-10.

Culture

Sarah Boyack (Edinburgh Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what communications it had with the organisers of The Gathering 2009 prior to the event taking place.

Fiona Hyslop: The First Minister met with the directors of The Gathering 2009 Ltd on 12 November 2008 and Michael Russell, the then Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution met with them on 28 April 2009.

  In addition to this, EventScotland, the national events directorate of VisitScotland managing the Homecoming Scotland initiative on behalf of the Scottish Government, attended regular steering group meetings with The Gathering 2009 Ltd, the City of Edinburgh Council and Scottish Enterprise in the run up to the event taking place.

Culture

Sarah Boyack (Edinburgh Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with the (a) City of Edinburgh Council and (b) Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance regarding debts incurred by The Gathering 2009.

Fiona Hyslop: (a) Given the positive results from the independent economic impact analysis of the Gathering event and the potential of future Gathering events, the Scottish Government had several discussions with representatives of the City of Edinburgh Council.

  (b) The Scottish Government has had no direct discussions with Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance regarding the debts incurred by The Gathering 2009 Ltd.

Culture

Sarah Boyack (Edinburgh Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what losses have been taken on by the (a) City of Edinburgh Council, (b) Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance and (c) Scottish Government in relation to The Gathering 2009.

Fiona Hyslop: A news release issued on 15 October 2009 by the City of Edinburgh Council, on behalf of Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance (DEMA), stated that DEMA was taking over The Gathering 2009 Ltd, citing the positive economic impact of the event and the potential of future events, and stating that DEMA would be taking on The Gathering 2009 Ltd’s remaining private sector obligations.

  The Scottish Government did not take on losses incurred by the company but made the decision to write-off the public sector debts owed to them.

Culture

Sarah Boyack (Edinburgh Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will list the creditors of The Gathering 2009, including for any debt written off or payment made by public agencies.

Fiona Hyslop: Information relating to the private sector creditors of The Gathering 2009 Ltd is commercially sensitive and, as such, it would be inappropriate to list these creditors.

  Given the circumstances of the company, the judgement was taken that the debts were irrecoverable. As a result, the Scottish Government, Historic Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service took the decision to write off the amounts owed to them by The Gathering 2009 Ltd. Debt written off by the public sector totals £316,000.

Culture

Sarah Boyack (Edinburgh Central) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what lessons it considers need to be learnt from the financial loss incurred by The Gathering 2009, given that it met the ticket sales target set by the organisers.

Fiona Hyslop: Clearly it will be important for those delivering future Gathering events to take cognisance of the experience gained in the organisation and delivery of the 2009 event.

Flooding

George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what funds have been made available to individuals and organisations affected by flooding in November 2009.

Stewart Stevenson: Comprehensive information in the form requested is not held centrally. The Scottish Government has made an interim payment to Moray Council of £141,329 under the Bellwin Scheme in respect of flooding in its area on 3 and 4 September 2009 and on 1 November 2009. The government also provides general funding to local authorities and Scottish Water, some of which will be spent by those agencies in relation to managing flood risk and it provides funding to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to monitor and advise on flood risk.

Fuel Poverty

Liam McArthur (Orkney) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive how many households have received support from the Energy Assistance Package in 2009-10, broken down by parliamentary constituency.

Alex Neil: Statistical Information is not held at constituency level. The following table shows the households helped under the Energy Assistance Package (EAP) to the end of November 2009, analysed by local authority.

  The type of support provided includes energy saving advice, assistance with benefits, advice on social tariffs, energy payment methods, insulation measures and installation of heating systems.

  Households Helped Under EAP, from April to End November 2009

  

Aberdeen City 
679


Aberdeenshire
1,094


Angus
815


Argyll and Bute
583


Clackmannanshire
243


Dumfries and Galloway
970


Dundee City 
803


East Ayrshire
706


East Dunbartonshire 
667


East Lothian 
441


East Renfrewshire 
652


Edinburgh, City of
2,073


Eilean Siar
372


Falkirk 
955


Fife 
2,408


Glasgow City 
2,196


Highland 
1,789


Inverclyde
665


Midlothian 
389


Moray
497


North Ayrshire
963


North Lanarkshire 
1,452


Orkney Islands 
174


Perth and Kinross
883


Renfrewshire
816


Scottish Borders
626


Shetland Islands 
50


South Ayrshire
824


South Lanarkshire 
1,691


Stirling 
639


West Dunbartonshire 
379


West Lothian 
733


No Value*
15


All Scotland
28,242



  Note: *The address verification process requires a valid post code in order to assign the address to a local authority. Occasionally with new builds the post code is not available with the Ordnance Survey data used by the database and therefore cannot be assigned to a local authority via the verification process. The post code data in the database is updated regularly and as it is updated the properties are assigned to the relevant local authority area.

Healthcare Associated Infection

Dr Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the Forth Valley healthcare associated infection (HAI) report and reports indicating the continued procurement and use of swan neck taps, whether it will instruct all NHS boards (a) not to procure swan neck taps and (b) to replace all taps not approved with appropriate sensor-controlled or lever taps.

Nicola Sturgeon: Current guidance available to NHS boards from Health Facilities Scotland on the provision of sanitary assemblies and infection control advises against the procurement of swan-neck taps.

  This guidance further advises that in existing facilities, when such fittings become damaged or in need of repair, they should be replaced by an appropriate alternative component as specified in the guidance.

  Scottish Health Technical Memorandum 2040: The control of legionellae in healthcare systems provides further guidance to NHS boards on risk management procedures for those fittings which remain in use.

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many nurses are employed in the NHS and how many are (a) registered and (b) not registered.

Nicola Sturgeon: Figures for (a) registered and (b) not registered nurses are not held centrally. However, an approximation for registered nurses would be Agenda for Change band 5 and above and bands 1-4 for nurses not registered. NHSScotland workforce data is published by National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland. Nursing figures are shown by band grouping at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5352.html - staff_in_post .

  The number of nursing staff (excluding midwifery) employed at 30 September 2009 was (head count) 64,836, up from 63,400 in 2008.

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many alcohol liaison nurses are employed in the NHS, broken down by (a) NHS board, (b) hospital and (c) primary care setting.

Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested is not centrally available. The data on the number of nurses employed by the NHS as at 30 September each year is published by National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland and is available from the website link:

  http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5352.html.

NHS Staff

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many dementia specialist nurses are employed in the NHS, broken down by NHS board.

Nicola Sturgeon: The information requested is not centrally available. However, the number of Clinical nurse specialists in mental illness broken down by specialty and NHS board is available from National Services Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland from the website link:

  http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5352.html - cns.

  It should be recognised that a wide range of health professionals, which includes medical staff, clinical nurse specialists and allied health professionals are needed to care for patients with specific conditions such as dementia.

NHS Staff

John Wilson (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether discussions have taken place with NHS boards regarding the introduction of a living wage of £7 per hour.

Nicola Sturgeon: NHS pay is considered on a UK-wide basis through the Pay Review Body process which makes recommendations for the individual consideration of UK ministers and ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

  The lowest paid staff in the NHS are covered by the Agenda for Change system and there is currently a three year pay deal in place covering the period 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2011. Under this deal, the lowest hourly rate currently available in NHSScotland is £6.76, which is significantly above the present minimum wage of £5.80 per hour. On 1 April 2010, this lowest hourly rate will rise to £6.98. It should also be noted that all Agenda for Change staff receive incremental progression as well as cost of living increases. These are, therefore, the bottom points on scales which staff move up on a yearly basis as their experience increases.

National Health Service

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what funding was provided to each NHS board to implement the objectives of the Scottish Enhanced Services Programme for Primary and Community Care in 2009-10.

Nicola Sturgeon: The amount allocated to each NHS board under the Scottish Enhanced Services Programme for 2009-10 is detailed in the following table:

  

NHS Board
Amount


Ayrshire and Arran
£955,486


Borders 
£246,968


Dumfries and Galloway 
£367,314


Fife
£781,862


Forth Valley
£656,050


Grampian
£1,093,873


Greater Glasgow and Clyde
£3,852,930


Highland
£811,891


Lanarkshire
£1,382,541


Lothian
£1,684,575


Orkney
£43,090


Shetland
£45,965


Tayside
£1,003,616


Western Isles
£73,839


Total
£13,000,000

National Health Service

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how it plans to monitor the expenditure and performance of each NHS board against each of the objectives of the Scottish Enhanced Services Programme for Primary and Community Care.

Nicola Sturgeon: A working group has been established to evaluate the progress made by each NHS board under the programme. NHS boards submitted interim reports on expenditure and performance in August 2008 and we will be undertaking a further round of information gathering next March.

Scottish Futures Trust

Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-24622 by John Swinney on 16 June 2009 and in light of the recent school building programme announcement and the role of Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) in managing this programme, whether the SFT is now fully established.

John Swinney: Yes. The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) corporate plan for the period 2009-14 was published on 19 November 2009 and is available here  www.scottishfuturestrust.org.uk . The plan sets out SFT’s strategic objectives, its main areas of work, including driving forward the £1.25 billion school building programme and SFT’s commitment to secure value for money savings from public infrastructure investment.